WASHINGTON - Signaling that the highly partisan battle over judges will continue next year, the White House announced yesterday that President Bush will renominate 20 unconfirmed judicial candidates, including six filibustered by Senate Democrats.

The unexpected holiday announcement disappointed Democrats and even dismayed moderate Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, who recently became chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which vets judicial nominees.

"I would have preferred to have had some time in the 109th Congress to try to cool the climate to avoid a judicial gridlock and future filibusters," said Specter, whose comments that a Supreme Court nominee must back abortion rights nearly cost him the chairmanship.

"But the president has a right to send over names and I respect that," Specter said. "We will move ahead on his nominees with hearings and appropriate consideration."

Absent from the list were the names of four nominees whom Democrats had blocked, including Claude Allen of Virginia. His nomination, which could still resurface, upset Maryland's two senators because the seat to which he was nominated on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals typically is held by a Marylander.

Last summer, Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski and Paul S. Sarbanes argued that Allen's selection to the bench would upset that tradition. A vote on the nomination was postponed.

A spokeswoman for Mikulski said the senator could not be reached for comment yesterday. Calls to Sarbanes' office were not returned.

The president's action yesterday sets the stage for a likely showdown over the filling of an expected vacancy on the Supreme Court and fuels speculation over whether Republicans will take the drastic step of changing Senate rules to ban filibusters on judicial nominees.

Though the Republicans in the election expanded their majority in the Senate to 55, they still lack the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster, which Democrats have used to block 10 judicial nominees they consider unsuitable or too extreme.

A rule change that would require only a simple majority of 51 votes to stop a filibuster has been dubbed the "nuclear option," because Democrats have vowed to block Bush's legislative agenda and to paralyze the work of the Senate with procedural delays and obstacles.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan complained the Senate failed to vote on many Bush nominations of "highly qualified individuals" to the courts and asserted it has "a constitutional obligation to vote up or down" on them.

Democrats dismissed that assertion as untrue and accused the White House of abandoning the president's post-election pledge of bipartisanship.

"The Bush administration is ending the year as they began it, choosing confrontation over compromise, ideology over moderation and defiance over cooperation," said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the Judiciary Committee's ranking Democrat.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat and a key player in the judge fight, said, "This is a sad day for America, because we have approved 204 out of 214 nominations and have only rejected the most extreme nominees."

Bruce Fein, a consultant on filibusters to Republicans, said Bush is "daring" Senate Democrats to filibuster again. "This looks like a dress rehearsal for ensuring a filibuster is not a weapon against a Supreme Court nominee," he said.

With the illness of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, many say Bush will have one or more vacancies to fill on the Supreme Court.

"It's a gratuitous slap in the face," said Nan Aron, executive director of the liberal coalition Alliance for Justice that has opposed many of Bush's nominees because they are against abortion rights, federal regulation and traditional civil rights.

Besides Allen, the other three nominees Democrats blocked and who are missing from Bush's list included Charles Pickering Sr., whose bruising battle for a seat on a federal appeals court abruptly ended when Bush, in a recess appointment, elevated him without congressional approval. Pickering announced his retirement earlier this month.

Miguel A. Estrada, a native of Honduras and former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, withdrew his name. Bush also did not retap California Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl.

We won't see any bipartisanship? Really? Then why does Bush talk about it?

AFP wrote:

Bush confirmed recent plans to appoint a "citizens' panel" to consider ways to reform the "outdated tax code." He has complained the tax system is too complicated, and has called for a fairer, simpler system without loopholes.

The president said he also would work with Congress to make health care more affordable and to raise achievement in schools.

"All of these goals require the energy and dedication of members of both the political parties, working in the spirit of bipartisanship we will build the foundation of a stronger more prosperous country," Bush said.

"We will meet our obligations to future generations as we do so."

_________________"A hypocrite pats you on the back in front of your
face, and slaps you in the face behind your back."
-Unknown

Oh please! Political correctness? Hardly. If Bush is saying working in the spirit of bipartisanship with no intention of following through it's two-faced. That may be ok in your book, but it's not mine.

_________________"A hypocrite pats you on the back in front of your
face, and slaps you in the face behind your back."
-Unknown

Do you really think anything J.Kerry says to the American people...or all the promises he made he really intended to keep. He wanted one thing and that was to get elected.

Bush says he will be bi-partisan but he is a republican.......so as long as bi-partisanship fits the republican party's agenda at the time then yes he will, but the moment it doesn't fit our agenda it is going right out the window. If you want to call that bi-partisanship??????

This is the result of the democratic party pulling out all the stops and to win the election.....Nothing was too low, no lie was too big, no fact could be twisted too much. Still to this day they can't accept the election results and move on. They have all the elaborate conspiracy theories how bush stole the election for the second time and Blah,Blah,Blah.

Now that they have lost, they come to the door in the spirit of working together. What they are saying is, "Now that we have lost the confidence of the American people and they have thrown us out on our collective a**es could we please have a say in what goes on in the government....please!!!...please!!!! I would tell them personally to go pound sand...........Bush is a better man than me and a politician, so you may be right he just might be amicable. I hope not, but we will see.

Any politician who is running for office wants to get elected - that's the point of running. I already said that I didn't vote for Bush or Kerry and that I have no party affiliation. I never called it bipartisanship, I pointed out that Bush said it. I called it two-faced. You know - deceitful, hypocritical, saying one thing then doing another.

_________________"A hypocrite pats you on the back in front of your
face, and slaps you in the face behind your back."
-Unknown